Another light day tomorrow. Less crafting and more reviewing chapters from the beginning of the year so students wouldn’t be?—
I stopped dead in my tracks, my thoughts dying mid-syllable. Someone was standing next to my car.
And not just anyone, but the man who’d kidnapped me.
“Stay back,” I said, my voice going hollow. In the last few days, I’d learned that was my flight-or-fight tone, and my instinct wasfight.Not what I would have assumed. I slipped my hand into my bag, where a canister of pepper gel was waiting for me. Not pepperspray,of course, because that was illegal and I could get fired for bringing that on school property, but peppergel,which was a legal means of self-defense.
He straightened slowly and turned to me, which allowed me to see that he was wearing an eyepatch. It was a visceral reminder that when push came to shove, I would do things I didn’t think I was capable of in order to survive.
“I’m not here to hurt you,” he said, holding up his hands.
“Then why are you here?”
For being shoved out of my little cozy, first-grade teacher bubble into a paranormal thriller, I liked to think that I was doing pretty good on that whole transition. Man, I missed when the most exciting part of my day was a kid showing me the quarter they got from the tooth fairy.
“Figured there were some things I needed to do.”
He took a step towards me so I rapidly took a step back and whipped my gel fully out of my bag, aiming it towards him.
“I may not have silver on me, but that doesn’t mean I can’t hurt you,” I said. “There’s wolfsbane in this.”
I was full of shit, and maybe he could smell I was lying, but sometimes bluffing was good enough—at least, that’s what the nature documentaries showed me.
“Actually, that’s part of why I’m here.” He slowly, carefully, reached a gloved hand into his pocket and pulled out a familiar little plaque of silver attached to a matching chain before extending it to me. “This is yours. Seemed important, so I wanted to return it.”
My bracelet! I was waiting until my next paycheck before ordering a new one. Regular medical bracelets were already expensive, but I had to have one in silver to alleviate my metal allergies, and those were pricey.
“You can throw it to me.” I thought that might annoy the man, but he just chuckled.
“Suspicious little thing, aren’t you?”
“I’m not a thing,” I said. “And can you blame me?”
“No. I suppose I can’t.” He tossed it to my feet and took a step back, which allowed me to study his face. He looked largely the same, except for angry, red veins that spread out a few inches from under his eyepatch.
“I have the bracelet now,” I said, although I didn’t bend down to retrieve it. That could wait until he was gone. “You can go.”
“That wasn’t theonlyreason I showed up,” he said after sucking on his teeth for a moment. I hated that sound, and apprehension made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. “I owe you an apology, to put it lightly.”
Was this a trick? If we were in an action movie, this would absolutely be the moment where the bad guy lured me close enough to grab me and finish his revenge quest against Ben, the dashing hero.
“Oh yeah?”
He huffed a laugh, then leaned against my car. “I suppose I deserve that derision in your voice right now. We didn’t exactly leave things on good terms, did we?” Although there was some dry mirth in his tone, there was a lot of anger and bitterness too.
“We can agree on that.”
“All right then. I’ll get this over with then. I’ll admit I was downright pissed at you, and I did want to hurt you, not just the alpha who killed my baby brother. My pride was raging that you, a weak little human, was able to take me down—no offense meant.”
“Of all the things you’ve done to me,that’swhat you’re worried about? Offending me?”
“Point taken.” He shook his head. “Gotta admit, this went a lot smoother in my head. I kind of hoped my big redemption moment would be a lot more cinematic.”
“Is that what’s going on here?” I asked, bending to grab my bracelet without taking my eyes off him.
“I suppose that depends on you. Because I’m just gonna say what I gotta say. You’re the one who decides where this goes.”
I nodded slowly. I didn’t trust him, but I could hear him out.
